By Thai Newsroom Reporters
TWO DOZENS OF Khmers were arrested on illegal entry charges after they sneaked across the border into Thai territory today (21.5.2020), police said.
One group of 12 Cambodians, seven females and five males, was arrested by the police in Ta Phraya district of Sa Kaeo province while the other group of 12 Cambodians, eight males and four females, was apprehended in Wang Namyen district of the eastern Thai border province.
Those aliens who are yet to be repatriated to their home country told the police they illegally crossed the border only to seek jobs in Thailand.
The 12 Cambodians arrested in Ta Phraya had slipped through a natural borderline before they were spotted and rounded up by the police. Eight of those illegal aliens came from Banteay Meanchey province and four from Oddar Meanchey province in northwestern Cambodia, the police said.
In a separate event, the other group of 12 illegal aliens, mostly from Battambang province in northwestern Cambodia, was rounded up on a road after a police unit chased the van carrying them from a border area in Khlong Hat district. The Thai van driver managed to escape, leaving behind the Cambodians on the road in Wang Namyen district, the police said.
Each of the Cambodians had paid 3,000 baht to the unidentified van driver in exchange for their travel to nearby provinces of Chonburi and Rayong where they would have found jobs.
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Top: The Aranyaprathet-Poipet border checkpoint which the illegal aliens did not use. On the Thai side of the border is the huge Rongkluea market. Cambodian people cross the border daily with pushcarts and scooters with side cars loaded with their products. A significant part of the trade is in second hand clothes. Just over the border on the Cambodian side there are casinos. Photo: Thanate Tan (CC BY 2.0)
